


in the middle of my darkest hour (rescue me)

by csi_sanders1129



Category: General Hospital (TV 1963)
Genre: Feelings, Kidnapping, M/M, Rescue, leverage - Freeform, mob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-26
Updated: 2012-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129
Summary: Ethan fades in and out of awareness as he’s left alone with nothing but his thoughts in the basement room that serves as his prison until he’s not even sure what day it is anymore.
Relationships: Ethan Lovett/Johnny Zacchara





	in the middle of my darkest hour (rescue me)

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposting some old fic. This was originally written and posted in like March of 2012.
> 
> Written for gh_unwrapped prompt ’41: leverage’ and finished during amnesty week. Characters not mine. I have no idea what’s happening on GH at present, aside from sketchy outlines of whatever my mom bitches to me about - so this is set back in like... 2010 or so? Lyrics in title are Daughtry's. Comments and Kudos are awesome! Enjoy!

Ethan fades in and out of awareness as he’s left alone with nothing but his thoughts in the basement room that serves as his prison. He’s not even sure what day it is anymore. He's been locked in this windowless room for so long that it's just all blurred together into an endless loop of nothingness. He spends most of his time there and when he's not locked in the room, he's tied to a chair being screamed at and beaten and otherwise bloodied. He tries to sleep, when he's in the room, but it just never comes - too cold, too dark, too wet.

They throw him food once in a while, he assumes it's twice a day but he has no real way to tell. Always crappy gas station food and water bottles, but food is food is not starving and he can barely taste it anyway.

"Ya feel like talkin' today, huh?" One of the hulking thugs who serve as guards growls at him as they drag him out of the dreary, dank basement and back to the room with the chair. Like always, he says nothing. He's done pretty well with not giving them the satisfaction of any sort of response at all. It's harder when they get mad, when they start with the beatings. He's bitten his lip so hard in his attempts to keep quiet that he's drawn blood on more than one occasion in however long he's been here and he's lost track of his injuries.

And that's another thing. He's not even really sure _why_ he's here. Sure, he works for Johnny, but it's not like he's more than a well-paid errand boy. He's not in charge of shipments or guards. He doesn't even carry a weapon. He doesn't have Sonny's power, or Jason's ruthlessness, not even Spinelli's tech-savvyness to justify this. He just tags along as Johnny's back-up sometimes and keeps him from doing stupid things. If he had to describe his job, it would probably be "Johnny's moral compass" so he really doesn't know why these guys have taken such an interest in him all of a sudden.

They're asking him questions, mostly about Johnny and Anthony and the business and shipment routes and plans and who guards what but he doesn't _know_ any of that and even if he did he wouldn't tell the assholes anyway. He drops his head and closes his eyes and waits. The first punch lands and he forces himself to stay quiet through the pain as the man's ring leaves a fresh gash along his jaw. He lets his mind float and spaces out when another fist buries itself against his stomach.

_He'd been walking home from Kelly's after a late meeting with Johnny when they'd approached. Out of nowhere, moving like shadows in the dark and quiet as death. He sees the metal glint of guns raised and aimed at him and all that does is make him move faster. He knows his way around the alleys he's cutting through, can probably lose them if he can stay ahead of them._

_But, apparently they know the alleyways, too, because another man is waiting just around the corner he turns into first. Then there's a gun to his chest and a sickly sweet smelling cloth over his mouth and then it's all blackness and silence._

Endless days and nights spent there, endless wounds and bruises that slowly heal over and are the guards are happy to reapply them each time they do. He wonders if anyone is looking for him by now, if anyone has even noticed he's gone. His father? Not in town, probably wouldn't notice if he was. His brothers? Probably think he's taken after Luke and bolted of his own volition. Kristina might raise a fuss, but anyone who'd listen to her would probably be glad to see him gone. Pretty much all he's left with is Johnny. And he'd be kidding himself if he thought Johnny cared enough to track him down, even though he really, really wants to believe that he would.

"Can we just kill him already? The brat’s getting on my nerves.” One of his captors enjoys threatening his life at every given opportunity, but now he’s just whining as they drag him back to his cell with no answers. He’s got fresh blood dripping down his face, pooling on his dirty t-shirt. It hurts to breathe, and his stomach pulses with painful protests with his every movement.

“Nope,” the second man dragging him answers. “Dead bodies don’t make good leverage.”

Leverage. The word sticks in Ethan’s mind, even though he’s practically delirious with pain. Mostly because it makes no sense. In order to be leverage, someone has to want him enough to want him free and that’s a really, really short list.

“Just kill me already,” he mumbles out, forgetting his vow of silence because his captors are very clearly idiots if they think their plan will actually work. Maybe they kidnapped the wrong person or maybe their boss got bad intel or something.

“Oh! He can talk!” The first guard laughs, jabbing him in the ribs with his fingers. “Say something else. Preferably the answers to our questions.” They drop him against the wall they’re standing by and it’s not like he’s going anywhere - he’s still cuffed and bloody and too sore to move so all he does is sink down to the floor.

“Fuck off.”

A boot connects with his side and he doesn’t have the time he needs to prepare for the pain before he’s screaming out in pain. It’s the most noise he’s made in he doesn’t even know how long and his throat feels raw as a result.

“Ffff,” Ethan garbles out, as the air leaves his lungs rapidly. He coughs and gags and sputters for a moment, regaining his breath just in time to see the boot come at him again. He slams his eyes shut and waits but the only thing that comes is the loud, resounding ricochet of a gunshot echoing in the concrete hallway. A second shot comes a second later, but no pain comes with it and then there’s the sound of bodies dropping to the ground and the slick footfalls of someone approach quickly on the damp basement floor. He ears are ringing and his vision blurry from the swift kick to his previous injuries, so he’s a little out of it when the figure kneels in front of him, hands on his shoulders that are for once gentle and not pushy and demanding.

“Hey,” a voice, familiar but distant, calls. “Ethan. Stay awake, okay?” Then the hands are pushy and demanding, shaking him slightly.

He cries out in pain and the movements abruptly stop, and gentle hands land on his shoulder again. Fingers move over his shackled wrists and he twitches away from them. All he wants to do is sleep but then he’s being pulled to unsteady feet. His rescuer says something, but Ethan doesn’t understand, his mind too hazy to interpret whatever was said.

Blearily, he recognizes the stairs to the upper floors of this hellhole, where the guards stay when they’re not fucking around with him. But there’s shouting then and more gunfire and whoever’s holding him up has to put him down, propping him up against the nearest covered wall before the shooting and shouting increases in volume and intensity.

A body falls just feet away from him and he knows immediately that it’s not one of his captors which means it’s his rescuer and that’s not good. The figure doesn’t move, stays still where he lays as a guard stumbles down the stairs and hauls Ethan up by his collar.

“You’re dead,” he mumbles out, hauling him back down the hallway, his other hand painfully twisting around one of Ethan’s cuffed wrists. He hears more so than he feels the bone crack - he’s too numb with pain to feel much of anything anymore, which is a small blessing - and he’s quickly shutting himself down before they can exploit the loss of his near escape any further.

They’re close to the room when the shot comes, echoing down the hall as Ethan notes the starburst of blood that appears on the door. He looks back to see the hole in the guards head and a half a second later the guy’s on the ground, dragging Ethan down with him.

He hears his name called, shouted, screamed, but all he sees is blackness until there’s finally some relief as everything goes quiet, too.

***

He wakes up warm and dry and clean. The room he’s in now is sterile and bright and reeks of disinfectant. Pretty much the complete opposite of the basement cell he’d been held in for so long.

Wrists bandaged, arm casted, cuts stitched, bruises everywhere. Numerous tubes snaking over the metal rails of the hospital bed and burrowed under his skin all over the place. Beeping monitors to his left and right and an especially annoying one somewhere overhead. All so different.

Also contrary to his time spent as a captive, he’s not alone.

Someone’s asleep in the chair pulled up beside his bed and it only takes him a second to recognize Johnny. His right arm is in a sling, casted, too. And when he combines that information with the knowledge that his rescuer must have been hit when he fell he realizes just what must have happened in the basement.

Luckily, Johnny’s on his better side, so he reaches out for him. He wants to know how Johnny found him, why he risked charging into that building - which had been crawling with guards - with no back up to save him.

“Hey,” Johnny mumbles, dragging himself back to consciousness once he realizes that Ethan’s awake. “How are you feeling?”

“The pain meds are doing wonders,” Ethan says, nodding toward the many IV lines off to his side. “You?”

“Shoulder’s not too bad. Had to shoot left-handed for that last guy.”

Ethan’s impressed. Left-handed head shot, okay. “How’d you figure out where I was?”

Johnny shrugs but pulls out a picture from his back pocket. It’s of Ethan, tied up in the dark, dreary, windowless room and sporting a plethora of bruises and dripping blood. He doesn’t remember it being taken, but he’d been unconscious on more than one occasion while captive. “That new guy, Alvarez, sent this to me. I tailed one of his guys to where they were holding you.”

“How long was I gone?”

“Almost two weeks. I’d been looking since the morning after you were taken, but I didn’t have any leads until I got this. What the fuck did they want with you?” Johnny asks, and he looks full of fury even now, even after he apparently killed everyone in that building to save Ethan.

Ethan almost laughs at having to explain his captors flawed reasoning. “They were somehow under the impression that I would make good leverage against you. I don’t know where they came up with that idea, but I bet they regret it now.” Even as he says the words, he knows they aren’t true because apparently he was an excellent motivator for getting Johnny to act. Johnny had even known when he was taken and he’d been searching almost immediately. Maybe they’d called that after all and just hadn’t quite anticipated the force with which Johnny would strike.

Johnny’s face says enough to prove to Ethan that maybe they were right. Frustrated and guilty and confused. “You’re not working for me anymore.”

“Uh, says who?”

“Me,” Johnny counters. “If you’re not working for me, my enemies can’t use you to get to me.”

He struggles to sit up in the hospital bed, irrationally pissed off and defensive now. “What the hell? I didn’t tell them anything, I swear. I’m not going to betray you.” Idly, he wonders if this is how Jason gets when Spinelli is in danger. He imagines that it’s probably about the same level of idiotic over-protectiveness.

“I know you didn’t say anything. I don’t know how you managed to get through the lengthy list of injuries the doctors listed off to me, but I know they wouldn’t have done that to you if you were talking.” Johnny starts, and Ethan’s glad he knows that. “I want you out because you’re safe that way.”

“How is that safer? Everyone knows I work with you - what’s to stop them grabbing me after you kick me out? I’d still work as leverage then, probably more so if they can figure out that you tried to limit that risk.”

Ethan’s logic is sound, but Johnny’s a little more focused on how much seeing the picture of Ethan had affected him. How much finding Ethan lying bleeding and broken on a hard cement floor had infuriated him and how easy it was to kill the guards holding him. It was violent and ruthless and more than a little bit stupid, but he’d done it. He’d saved Ethan and he’s not allowing anything like that to happen again. “Then you’ll have to leave. Go somewhere without ties to Port Charles.”

“Where was all of this before I got kidnapped?”

“It didn’t matter then. Well, it mattered. But nobody knew it mattered and somehow they figured it out and I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you getting grabbed every time we go out.” Johnny rants, dragging his good hand through his hair as he sighs in something like exasperation. “I want you around, but it’s too dangerous.”

Ethan frowns as the words process in his drugged up brain. “Hold on. Wait, just wait. Why did I work as leverage again? Because I was pretty sure no one was coming and what the hell did they figure out about me that made them think I would work against you?”

Johnny sighs, pushes the chair away from the bed and stands, awkwardly pacing the room now, as if he’s some sort of caged animal. “They figured out that I like you,” he says, but he keeps going before Ethan has a chance to say anything. “At first, they weren’t sure - but then Alvarez said they thought we were already together because you were always leaving my place late at night. They were wrong about that, but they weren’t entirely wrong and so you make for fantastic leverage.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to say anything about it,” Johnny says, back turned to Ethan as he fixates on the digital clock mounted on the wall as if that will somehow spare him from this conversation. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you feel the same. I’m dealing with it, but if you could not be a liability to the business, I’d appreciate it. I’ll send you wherever you want to go, but you have to get away.”

Ethan contemplates trying to get out of the hospital bed and attempting to whack the crazy out of Johnny’s head, but he imagines that even the pain meds wouldn’t get him through that so he settles for talking. “I’m not going anywhere and I think it does matter because I do feel the same and I think I’d be less of a liability if I was closer to you as opposed to further away. If one of our enemies wants to fuck with you, he’ll find me if I’m in Port Charles or on the other side of the world. If I disappeared somewhere else, would you have known to start looking within hours, like you did this time?”

“No,” Johnny admits. Reluctantly, he returns to his seat, scooting it in closer to the bed. “If you stay, you move in with me. And anything that starts between us stays between us until I think it’s safe. And you don’t go anywhere without me or a guard until I deal with Alvarez.”

He knows he’s going to be stuck in the hospital for a little while, yet and even when he is released, he’s going to need some help getting his strength back so he can’t really find a flaw in that plan at all. The secrecy will probably grate on him after a while, but he’ll deal with that when they come to it. Once he’s up to going places - the Haunted Star, to Kelly’s - the guard thing will probably get annoying, too, but then again he’s not exactly eager to go wandering through the alleys of Port Charles anytime soon, either. “Deal,” he says.

“Deal,” Johnny agrees, relaxing into his seat. He lets his hand rest on the bed and much to Ethan’s surprise he doesn’t move away when his lands over top of it.


End file.
